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Review by mesherryt 
Posted: 8.9 years ago
member for 8.9 years, 1 visits, last login: 8.9 years ago
 Union,Boone,KY
 $39 per month (12 month contract)
 Cincinnati Bell
 "reliable connection, easy to install"
 "overall good deal"
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No complaints. My husband installed the service himself and we received our first two months of service free. The connection is reliable and the speed is awesome.
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Review by dgdewsnap
Posted: 9 years ago
member for 9.2 years, 36 visits, last login: 5.4 years ago
Milford,Clermont,OH
$40 per month
 about 21 days
Cincinnati Bell
CLEC party: Cincinnati Bell
"Fast, reliable, up >98% and reasonably priced medium speed ADSL"
 "High speed ADSL is 4x the cost of medium speed"
"I'm happy with the service"
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I was a charter member for Zoomtown. For a 1 yr. contract, they supplied the 3Com NIC, Cisco 675 modem, cabling and installation/setup. My monthly charge was $29.95 for low speed - still far better than 56k. Approx. 6 mo later, they upgraded everyone to medium speed (768/384 - dynamic IP) for the same price. I've been with them over two years and can only remember two brief outages. Tech support has always been helpful although the hold times to get a technician have increased greatly. RoadRunner is pushing hard now in this area. I'm hoping that will result in a price decrease for the high speed service. Even if that happens, I may stay with medium speed as most of the sites I visit don't have the bandwidth to give decent data rates anyway.
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Review by Trin20t1
Posted: 9.1 years ago
member for 9.1 years, 1 visits, last login: 9.1 years ago
Cincinnati,Hamilton,OH
$39 per month (12 month contract)
about 12 days
Cincinnati Bell
"Fast,cheap!"
"Disconnects while away from pc"
"It's great,reliable and a great DSL service"
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I ordered Zoomtown from Cincinnatibell and have used it since 12 days ago.I love it the guy came out and installed it in my room,he was nice and gave me pointers and tips.He told me he had been using it for awhile and loved it.At first I thought ok something must be bad about it.I did have to take the crappy modem they gave me back because it didn't connect right.So I went to the local Cincinnatibell Wireless and gave them the defected modem back for a new 1.They were so nice to me I was a little scared.But it did work and connect me.At first I was surprized at how fast the pages loaded.Wow,even the 1's with pictures that take forever loaded fast.And streaming media was like watching MTV and listening to a CD.And mp3's that I never could download with 56k,just took off and downloaded well.I must say Zoomtown is 1 of the best DSL services out there.Another is Flashcom.I'm still using Zoomtown in fact I'm using it now and I think it's wonderful.It does need some improving like the disconnections while away or looking at a page.Like the guy on the commercial says, "Go zoomtown,go zoomtown!"
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Review by chevelle1971
Posted: 9.1 years ago
(review was emailed from domain fuse.net)
Hamilton,Butler,OH
$39 per month
Cincinnati Bell
CLEC party: Cincinnati Bell
"Been on line 5mths have not had a conection problem.!!"
"Tech support could be a little better and faster."
"For the price it is better then cable."
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At $39.95 and compare it to a cable service, the speed is always there no bottle necking.If you stay with the service for a year you get the equipment and if you stay less then a year all you do is give the equipment back, no money changes that i have heard.And no contract.
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Review by mcoles
Posted: 9.1 years ago
(review was emailed from domain zoomtown.com)
Cincinnati,Clermont,OH
$40 per month (12 month contract)
Cincinnati Bell
"Reliable, Great setup coordination"
"NO Static IP, Some Tech Support Issues, Service Disconnects After Inactivity Timeout"
"Reliable low-cost solution for home internet access"
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Setup Fee: None (running a special at the time)
I called Zoomtown to schedule a set-up after moving to Cincinnati. The
lady who answered informed me that she could set me up immediately, but
that if I could wait a week I could take advantage of an upcoming
special (no installation fee). I waited until the day the special
started, called in and had a set-up/installation time scheduled for the
end of that week. The installation specialist arrived at the scheduled
time, and had me up and running within 30 minutes. After a week, I
noticed that my speed was never quite making it above 240 Kbps, so I
scoured the Zoomtown site searching for information as to how fast the
connection was supposed to be. The information was not available
anywhere on their site. I then called Zoomtown Tech Support. After 3
calls and 5 transfers, I was finally told that the connection should be
between 520 Kbps-768 Kbps [quite a range]. We went through all the troubleshooting
steps over the phone, including unplugging phones, remote line tests,
determining distance from the jump station, etc. It took 4 more calls
to Tech Support before they realized it was a configuration problem on
their end. It was fixed within 20 minutes of my last call to Tech
Support. Now my speeds are consistently within the advertised limits.
All in all, I'd have to say that Zoomtown does a good job. My only gripes would be:
-No Static IP
-the initial speed problem
-the "AOL-Style" Disconnects for Inactivity
-no Linux support (although you can make it work)
That aside, it is still a vast improvement over 56K. I don't think I could go back to a regular modem.
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Review by (hidden by request)
Posted: 9.2 years ago
(review was emailed from domain croc.net)
Cincinnati,Hamilton,OH
$39 per month (12 month contract)
Cincinnati Bell
"Cheap DSL with a real Cisco router!"
"NO static IP, no DNS, Not supposed to run servers, No LAN support, outages"
"Good if your are making the leap from AOL, bad if you have PC/Apple skills"
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I have had Zoomtown since 11/98 and it has been less than stellar! Zoomtown
is an ADSL offering from the local Bell unit Cincinnati Bell/Broadwing. I
had Zoomtown installed on a dedicated copper loop instead of their usual
bundled over your 'normal phone line crap'. The main reason being less line
noise which allows me to get a constant 45/48 db on my loop. The next step
was conecting the Cisco 675 to my server (I know, CBT will not support
anyone running a server or a home based LAN, get over it CBT!) which proved
easy the first year until the bozos decided to enforce all users to switch
to a new router firmware that was modified just for Zoomtown. Then I fired
up MS Proxy server 2.0, got Zoombot (the best login script out there!),
started using yi.org & tzo.org to handle dynamic IP routing, and got Visual
Pulse (a network monitoring utility) to monitor 13 different remote IP's
(various sites I manage) by pinging every ALL IP's every 10 seconds. Now all
this keeps my connection 24/7 EXCEPT when the bozo's at CBT decide to reset
their DSLAM's or bump users off during heavy peak loads. Zoomtown is cheap
but very limited as to what you can accomplish other than general web
surfing & email. There are many other DSL providers around now that provide
all the features that CBT will never offer because it would hurt their ISDN,
TI and fractional T services.
If you do get Zoomtown, do the following:
Go to »adsl.contamination.org/index.shtml and read all the tips
carefully.
Download Zoombot (this is a small program that will help you bypass their
login crap!) and install it.
Go to How To's page and read how to adjust your Cisco 675 routers firmware,
do not rush this part!
Telnet into your router and create a password for yourself, this will help
keep CBT out of your router.
Follow the directions in 'How to protect your LAN when using ADSL (For CBOS
2.1.0-2.3.0)' even if you have only 1 PC, you can make a small firewall
within your Cisco router!.
Adjust your email client(s) to check for new email every 1-2 minutes.
Otherwise I strongly recomend you go with a good DSL provider who uses
either the Northpoint or Covad platforms. Rhythms has had a bad time in
Cincinnati and its a wonder they still are in business. I tested a SDSL
circuit for them which was a complete screwup. Other DSL providers will let
you have static IP's, run servers, offer SDSL, offer bundled web hosting,
offer DNS, and let you be connected 24/7 period (no login!). If you are a Apple user, got straight to another DSL provider now! Zoomtown offers none of these services. I still have their loop as a redundant DSL circuit, but not for long.
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Review by antithug
Posted: 9.2 years ago
member for 9.3 years, 30 visits, last login: 4.7 years ago
Cincinnati,Hamilton,OH
$40 per month (12 month contract)
about 9 days
"Free Equipment and Install"
"Speed of only 768down\384up and you dont get static ip."
"Good solid adsl for home computers"
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ADSL speeds of 786down and 384up with dynamic ip address is $40 per mo with isp included. Cisco 675 router. Retains speed of 80k throughout the day. Good tech support and installations through Zoomtown from Cincinnati Bell using Fuse for my ISP
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Review by (hidden by request)
Posted: 9.2 years ago
(review was emailed from domain email.uc.edu)
Cincinnati,Hamilton,OH
$40 per month (12 month contract)
"Everything... I can't say a bad thing about it."
"Its not free... and they don't give 1.5Mbps/768Kbps for only $40 :)"
"Great value for money. Very reliable, very fast. The best DSL."
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After having Cincinnati Bell / Zoomtown ADSL for the past year and a half (since Feb. '99) I have finally decided to do a review (basically because I'm lazy). Zoomtown has been nothing but great since day one. I ordered it, and within 3 weeks I had it installed and working correctly. After I had signed a contract that we would pay $45 a month with the ISP, Cincinnati Bell decided to drop their prices, and even dropped mine even though I was locked in for a year (great customer service points for that!). My connection has been down for maybe a total of 2 days since I got it, and that was due to a problem with Cisco over a year ago (they paid the money to fly in Cisco engineers over night on the weekend to take care of the problem). Since then, Zoomtown has given everyone 4 IP addresses (unfortunately they're dynamic IPs, but you can get around that with yi.org). I also have a 3rd party program that allows me to stay logged in at all times. Cincinnati Bell gives everyone Cisco 675 DSL Routers, which is better than I can say for some DSL providers who give nothing but bridge modems. After watching my friends who had Road Runner download speeds consistently drop, I was happy that I had gone on the DSL route, and will continue to be a pimp for Cincinnati Bell / Zoomtown as long as they keep their high standard of service.
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Review by BSPgod
Posted: 9.5 years ago
member for 9.6 years, 2 visits, last login: 9.5 years ago
Cincinnati,Hamilton,OH
$39 per month
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Ive had had Cincinnati bells Zoomtown even before the roll-out
I participated in the beta testing, so ive seen the system totally evolve.
The system had some problems when it was new, alot of people were quickly learning all new equipment, but with anything new, that is to be expected.
Zoomtown does NOT require me to login via a web browser, nor does it time out. Static IP's are the option of the ISP you choose. Some have them some dont. There were a few times when it went down for over 24 hours, but Cincinnati Bell was quick to credit me for a whole month.
Zoomtown is fully capable of being used to host a game server
one nice example is razor.phrozen.org, a Half-Life counter-strike server, run by a user. this server is accessible to the outside world, as well as directly accessible inside zoomtown (at a much faster connect too) by its zoomtown IP of 10.192.2.45
I would reccomend zoomtown personally over the other broadband options in this area
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Review by jwhall
Posted: 9.8 years ago
member for 9.8 years, 1 visits, last login: 9.8 years ago
Cincinnati,Hamilton,OH
$29 per month (15 month contract)
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I've had Zoomtown since the rollout in November 1998. The fortunate thing is you aren't required to use the telco's ISP, Fuse. You have a choice to use one of several local ISP's in the area. But I've had nothing but problems with the service.
It worked great for a few months after I had it hooked up. I self installed everything, and hooked my router to a hub immediately to share my internet connection with my roommate. Then they released an upgrade to a newer version of the Cisco CBOS. That's when the trouble started. Multiple computer access stopped working immediately, and eventually using the upgraded version was a requirement to connect to the network. Then I moved to another apartment, switched CO's, and for the last six months, my service has been a nightmare. My line drops train every 60 seconds. Besides that severe annoyance, everything's pretty good. When it works, the line is pretty fast. I have a Linux server running as a firewall and a gateway for my other computers, and the server runs a script to keep me logged on (as you can tell from the other reviews, we're required to log on to use the system, unlike with cable modems, where there is no logon procedure necessary). I'm still fighting with Cincinnati Bell's insane bureacracy in getting the instability issue dealt with (and yes, it has literally taken six months).
Our price is good, though, compared with other parts of the country. $30 a month plus a $10 ISP fee is fairly reasonable for high speed access, but i think it could easily be lower from the telco side. But don't bother calling their tech support unless you want to be frustrated beyond belief. I had a rep there tell me i couldn't train up because i hadn't cleared my cache in Netscape. Hmm. 
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Cincinnati Bell
